Posted on 01/04/2013 1:31:21 PM PST by jmcenanly
IMAGINE a football match pitting 11 clones of Wayne Rooney against 11 more clones of the same spud-faced Manchester United striker. Even avid Wayne-watchers might find it a bit dull. But polo fans may one day be treated to something similar. No one is proposing to clone the stallions who wield the mallets, of course. But the stallions they sit on are another matter. Outstanding polo horses are hard to find and horribly expensive. Each world-class rider may have dozens, the best of which may cost more than $200,000 each.
So breeding great mounts is big business. It used to be hit-and-miss, but new technology is making it less so. In 2010 the world’s first cloned polo pony was born. The technique has since caught fire in Argentina, the global capital of professional polo. Adolfo Cambiaso, probably the world’s best player, has teamed up with Alan Meeker of Crestview Genetics, a Texan firm, to clone eight of his mounts.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Are these scientists honest? Could they be pulling a fast one, like the cold fusion guy?
I would worry about a phoney cloney pony.
Note: My comment is 100% just so that I can make that joke. I don’t care about the honesty of the researchers.
“IMAGINE a football match pitting 11 clones of Wayne Rooney against 11 more clones of the same spud-faced Manchester United striker. “
I dunno, watching twenty two copies of someone claw, scratch, bite and kick at themselves would have a certain mystique to it.
A kind of existential art form in a way.
I remember a sci-fi story in which a team of researchers is composed of clones. Twelve identical people. At one point two of them go into a mine shaft which then starts to collapse. The entire team rushes INTO the mine shaft — they are basically trying to rescue themself — but the collapse kills the entire team.
Or, as sewer worker Ed Norton once called them: "A string of pol-lop-pon-nees"
Tech tends to trickle down from expensive not necessarily practical uses to cheap practical uses. Because it always starts expensive technologies are generally not practical in the early stages. But clone enough $200,000 horses and people find cheaper faster ways to do the process until eventually you can use it for thousand dollar cows, or eventually even $20 chickens.
Polo Wars Episode II: Attack of the Cloned Ponies
And, just as Ralph couldn’t get that mispronunciation out of his mind, I’ve never been able to forget that episode.
I glanced at the title and thought they were cloning George Clooney.
what if you had a football game between the Packers and a team of 11 one foot high Ditkas?
I dunno, Bahb... I’m gonna hafta go with the Packers. But if it was eleven full-size Ditkas...
How hungry are those one foot tall Ditkas?
Have they been given rocket fuel coffee?
How visible are they to their opponents?
Are they angry or just slightly miffed?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
